13th MUSIAD International Trade Fair represents a great opportunity to meet businessmen in this sector not only from Turkey but also from different countries all over the world. The fair program includes regular activities such as “sector-based meetings” aiming at gathering businessmen who share common interests under one roof, MUSIAD also arranges visits to some selected factories in this sector. Taking into consideration that the 14th International Business Forum (IBF) will be held in Istanbul from the 6th to the 9th of October 2010, the potential number of visitors for the Fair is constantly growing.

The production of machinery & machine tools is an important and fast growing sector in Turkish economy. The increasing percentage of this sector in the economy reflects a trend shown in high developed countries’ economies; this means that Turkey had its steps to be one of those high developed countries. Even the exports of this sector do not form a huge percentage of the total exports but it is promising to be in the near future. The relatively cheap work force in Turkey gave a competitive advantage to this sector and this seems to continue in the near future. The utilized capacity of this sector is %78; this sector contains 388 huge & middle companies and 9822 small size companies. 17 foreign companies exist in this sector.

Machine tools are the main machines that provide the manufacturing of other machines. Simply, machine tools are “machines that produce machines”. The machine tools industry is directly related to the general machinery manufacturing, automotive and defense industries. Thus, it is generally viewed as a strategic sector for a country.
According to worldwide statistics for the year 2001, Turkey is the 19th largest manufacturer among 29 machine tool manufacturing countries, with a production value of US $ 185.6 million. 36% of the total is from metal cutting type machining centers and the remaining 64% from metal forming type machine tools. The Turkish machine tools industry partially meets domestic demand and about two third of the production is exported.

Today the Turkish machine tools industry and sub-industries are composed of more than 100 companies. These companies are mainly SME’s which have less than 200 employees. About 10 companies are large-scale manufacturers of machine tools and parts/components/auxillaries. Manufacturing sites are mainly located in the Marmara, Central Anatolian and Aegean Regions of Turkey. Istanbul, Bursa, Konya, Izmir, Ankara and Kayseri are the major cities in machine tools and parts/components production. The strong textile industry in Turkey initiated the development of the textile machinery and equipment industry. Until 1980 nearly all textile machinery and equipment were imported. However, starting in 1980 some local production of small and medium-sized low-tech machinery began. At present, the line of products manufactured by the companies varies substantially from highly automated equipment to basic models and local producers are able to compete with the imported advanced machinery in most machinery categories, such as atmospheric jet dyeing (overflow) or blow dyeing machinery.